


Anomaly

by Elizabeth (anghraine)



Category: Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
Genre: Asexuality, Demisexual Character, F/M, Gen, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-21
Updated: 2011-03-21
Packaged: 2017-10-17 04:33:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/172942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anghraine/pseuds/Elizabeth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For Darcy, Elizabeth is different in every possible way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anomaly

**Author's Note:**

> I had thought of writing an ace manifesto for asexual_fandom; this is what came out instead.

Fitzwilliam Darcy was a man of principle and integrity, austere in his habits and discriminating in his tastes.  In addition to this, he was detached, cool-tempered, and unsociable by disposition.  He would not have known how to seduce a woman even if he had ever felt inclined to do so.

He never had. 

He admired women, after his fashion.  Certainly he enjoyed the sight of handsome features or an elegant figure as much as the next man.  Yet somehow that enjoyment had never transformed itself into anything beyond the pleasure he found in elegant architecture or a fine landscape, much less desire.

He needed to marry, of course.  Eventually, he would: but not now.  He was young and healthy, and he did not _want_ – he meant, he did not intend to marry before Georgiana came of age.  It would be a cold, comfortless duty that impelled him to take a wife, but his duty to Georgiana was nothing of the kind.  He could not imagine that any woman, however amiable, would appreciate coming second to his sister. 

It would be best if she married, perhaps at twenty or one-and-twenty.  It was young, but not too young, and they should be able to find someone kind, gentle, and accommodating in that time.  However rare such men were, he knew they existed – why, he knew one of them already, in his friend Bingley.

Bingley, in fact, would be very well-suited to her.  Perhaps – in time – well, in five or six years, he would do what he could about it.  Bingley might even be willing to take Georgiana’s name, and their children could inherit Pemberley.  Darcy wouldn’t need to marry at all.

Then he met Elizabeth. 

He didn’t remember meeting her, but he didn’t remember most insignificant things.  He knew her now and he had not before, so clearly they _had_ met at some point and were now – acquaintances?  Not friends, but –

It took him a ridiculous amount of time to understand what they were.  In twenty-seven years of life, he’d never been more bewitched by a woman than he’d been by a glade of trees, and now he felt something different. It was strange, foreign, bewildering.  For the first time in many years, he had no idea what he should do, or say, or think.

He couldn’t bring himself to speak to her.  He had never been shy, but this was different, it was – he’d never felt anything like this before.  He didn’t know how one went about being infatuated.  So he worked up his courage by way of listening to her, and talked eagerly when she finally spoke to _him_. 

He wasn’t in love with her then and he didn’t want to marry her.  He didn’t want to marry anyone.  But nothing _other_ than marriage ever occurred to him, either.  If he couldn’t marry her, he couldn’t have anything with her – and he certainly couldn’t marry her.  Until he could.

It took _the utmost force of passion_ for that, just as he said in his letter.  It wasn’t that he’d wanted to marry, or that he required a – a companion.  He’d never wanted any of that, and he still didn’t, apart from Elizabeth. It wasn’t him, it was _her_.  Something about her was different, or made him different, or – or something, but it wasn’t passion in general.  Just her.

Much later, when he was safely married, he looked at Elizabeth and said, “I have never – ”

Then he stopped, because that sentence could only lead to _I have never lain with anyone else_ , and that wasn’t what he meant at all.  He had no words for what he did mean.  Perhaps it could never be explained or expressed aloud – least of all to Elizabeth.

At any rate, it no longer mattered.  Everything was different now.


End file.
